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Facebook to Monitor Berlusconi Content

MILAN — Facebook said Tuesday that it would monitor content on its Web site dealing with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy following an attack at a political rally that left him hospitalized.

“Promoting violence, or posting threatening content, is not permitted on Facebook,” the social-networking site said. “We will take quick action to respond to reports, and remove any content reported to us that makes direct threats against an individual.”

Facebook has shut down the largest fan page for Massimo Tartaglia, the man who is accused of hitting Mr. Berlusconi on Sunday with a statuette of the Milan cathedral, after it had amassed almost 100,000 users in less than 48 hours.

Other fan pages with fewer members have remained open. Several hundred people were signing up for one site every hour Tuesday, and by early evening it had more than 8,500 members.

“We’re the largest group still up, how many hours do we have left?” asked one message on the page. Another user responded: “Surely few, but we have shown how many of us stand behind Massimo and that we support his gesture!”

The attack on Mr. Berlusconi and Facebook’s response comes as four Google executives face a criminal trial in Milan with accusations of failing to monitor the content on one of its video sites properly. Google, which has said that it acted immediately after it was made aware of the objectionable content, is expected to put on its case Wednesday.

Facebook has had previous run-ins with regulators and lawmakers in Italy. Before the attack on Mr. Berlusconi, the company had already blocked access to several groups with names like “Let’s Kill Berlusconi,” after government officials complained that it was unacceptable to threaten violence against the prime minister.

Last winter, Facebook staved off proposed legislation that would have allowed the Italian authorities to shut down the site if the company did not block content deemed objectionable, like fan groups of imprisoned Mafia bosses.

A company spokeswoman said Facebook was acting in Italy as it would in any other country, though she added that the company was paying close attention to Italy’s regulatory environment, which has periodically swung against social media.

Mr. Berlusconi, who was expected to spend a third night hospitalized before returning home Wednesday for two weeks of rest ordered by doctors, has proved a divisive figure in his 15 years in politics. That the divisiveness would manifest itself on Facebook is not surprising — the site has accumulated more than 12 million active users in Italy, 20 percent of the population, in the 15 months since the Italian language site was introduced. The company has 350 million users worldwide.

Mr. Tartaglia, a 42-year-old with a history of psychological problems, is being held in the psychological ward of a Milan jail. He has written Mr. Berlusconi a letter of apology.